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A lso fifteen years ago.

I walked into the kitchen to see my mother and sister weeping on the floor and my father shouting at them with a belt in his hand.

“Where’s my fucking money?!” he shouted, but I caught the hard leather before it could reach them and shoved him away.

“Get away from them, you bastard!”

That was when he turned his evil attention on me. His face was a ruddy mask of desperation and rage, and he stunk like cheap whiskey.

“It’s too late for you, old man. They're coming,” I growled.

“Sonovabitch!” he screamed and came at me.

But for the first time, I was ready.

“Go ahead. Hit me,” I dared him, and he did.

Like I expected.

The first punch sent my head flying to the left, but I refused to make a sound. My father’s violence was no stranger to me.

“You no good son of a whore!” he snarled, his face way too close to mine.

The old man’s rank breath was far worse a hit than his puny fists could deliver. I narrowed my eyes, bracing myself for the next blow.

He continued to rage, and when he lifted his hand to strike again, I knew I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

I caught his fist, twisting his arm, and I pushed the piece of shit away from me.

“You can’t do that! I’m your father! I gave you everything! You and that bitch whore of a mother have nothing without me! She did this, didn’t she? She told those bastards where to find me,” he growled and stepped towards her again.

My mother whimpered and held my sister tight.

“No! Stop,” she pleaded.

But she didn’t have to worry. I would never allow him to get near her again.

I jumped in front of him and shook my head.

“Tell me where the cash is. There’s a boat. I’ll just leave, and you’ll never see me again,” he demanded.

I clenched my jaw. The man was still my father, but he was a liar and a prick. I’d watched him try to destroy my mother and sister with his violence and hate, and I would not allow it another moment.

He started pulling out drawers and cursing, but he wouldn’t find a thing.

My old man’s world was falling down around his ears, and he still didn’t understand.

Ever since he tried to double cross the Vipers with old man O’Doyle, making a deal to try to cut the powerful Jersey City based gang out, my old man had signed his own death certificate.

My ancestors had come to this country in the 1850s and worked damn hard to make something of themselves.

Back then, people weren’t very kind to the wave of Irish that came over in hordes, seeking sanctuary from the famine and political unrest back home.

So, my people did what countless others had done when struck with no way to make ends meet in the land of promise.

They turned to the underworld and made names for themselves, doing everything from running numbers to hiring themselves out as muscle for others.

The Callahan name used to mean something here. But my father fucked that all up with one poor decision after another.

Maybe he thought he could build himself back up by striking me down.

Well, if that was the case, then the old man had another thing coming.

See, he thought one of his goons slipped up, and told the Viper King, Nico Fury, that it was that guy who’d initiated the double cross. Figured he had a fall guy and could bullshit his way out of it.

But it wasn’t some low-level thug who ratted him out.

It was me.

I was the one who told those deadly snakes where they could find him.

I was the one who recognized my father needed to be taken out of the picture so that I could rebuild what he’d so foolishly destroyed.

“You got it wrong, old man.”

“What are you talking about? I am your father. I am the goddamn leader of the Callahans!”

“Nah,” I growled, glaring down at the man who had terrorized me, my mother, and my sister for most of our lives and all of my childhood.

I could have just handed him over to the men who were hunting him. They were powerful men.

Merciless.

But I owed this motherfucker for a lifetime of hate. I flicked a glance at my mother as she rose from the broken linoleum floor with my sister wrapped in her arms.

Blood trickled from her lip as we locked eyes and she nodded her head, turning her back on her despicable husband and giving me the okay.

That was all the go ahead I needed.

I took the gun from my waistband and pointed it at his head.

“You. Are. Nothing.”

The muted sound of my silencer echoed in my ears as I watched my sire crumple to the ground, a hole between his eyes.

Ten minutes later, a cleaner arrived.

The men my father fucked over were going to let me live, but it would be a long time before I earned back the respect my father cost us.

The Callahan name would rise above that piece of shit. That was my vow. I would see it done.

No matter what.